Until You Will Laugh Again
by crystalbluefox
Summary: We never thought that they were here, only mere stories we heard about in the darkest hours of night. But they are here, among us, some hidden, others blatently walking at our sides. Sanji never thought that there was any good to his new life, but thanks to his old friend Zoro, he can still manage to stay partly sane.
1. A Song for Death

Until You Will Laugh Again

A fan fiction by Crystalbluefox

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Prologue

A Song for Death

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"One day, you will become what you haunt, Zoro Roronoa." Thin lips pulls up to a bloodied grin "That is your destiny, poor human."

The blade slides through the skin, the flesh breaks and lets the shining metal go even further in between the ribs to stab right through the milt. The body falls like a puppet getting its strings cut off. The blade slides out for then to stab right through its throat as well. It smiles up at him, two canines shining among all the blood pooling up in its mouth, as the cold metal pulls back, almost cutting the head from the body. Two shining red eyes gleams in joy, even goes to look amused at him.

— «»»««» —

_'I feel like being haunted_

_Driven up against a wall, getting all ways blocked out._

_It's making me sick and crazy, till the end it hurts my head!_

_And look what 'she's' getting out of you instead!_

_Why are you driving me so tired?_

_It isn't even funny anymore, you don't see?_

'_She's' driving me so mad, I want to scream in agony._

_And soon 'she' will come for you as next.'_

The Radio yells out into the silent room, there is something about this silence there feels wrong.

_'I want to break something, fall on my knees and cry, cry till my eyes dry out._

_This is what I get after so many years? This is what I get after so much hard work?_

_I've always been you so faithful_

–_you even hearing me?-_

_Faithful to the end it's almost getting dirty!_

_And_**_look_**_where 'she's' going now,_**_look_**_what 'she's' doing now,_

"_Is she trying to give me a mental disease before 'she' will 'fire' me up?" Yes!'_

She isn't anywhere to be seen. He calls, but the silence swallows his words at once. He calls higher, but the loud music from the radio steals his words. Something is definitely wrong here.

_'Why is 'she' after me?_

_Why calling me into yet another 'meeting' for fifth time, sixth time?_

_-It's all lies I tell ya!-_

_And then even dragging one of the highest of them all_

"_Look God! This is what he did, this is what he do,"'_

It's not even her taste of music. So why does the music band 'Fist of Fire' then blast through her speakers, and then this loud?

_'And what do you do?'_

He stops dead in his tracks as he spots her in the kitchen.

'…_I help as much I can everywhere - you don't see?_

_Has she even blinded you as well, stolen you as well?_

_Fucker open your eyes and look closer!'_

Light blonde hair is spread out around her like a fading sun, as it tries to give the last of its warms out. She's lying on the floor, but she's not alone…

' "_Has she found the weak spot of our family?" you ask?_

"_The weak spot from what we dies of?" you ask?_

"_Will I ever reach the age of twenty-seven?"_

_Be scared, be awake twenty-four seven!'_

Blood. Blood is everywhere to be seen. The music is booming and there is blood everywhere. Her green eyes stares empty up at him, her mouth open in a long gone scream.

_'I want to break something, fall on my knees and cry, cry till my eyes dry out._

_This is what I get after so many years? This is what I get after so much hard work?_

_I've always been you so faithful_

–_you even hearing me?-'_

Around her sat people eating of her flesh, no, they were _drinking_, _toasting_ on her blood.

_'Faithful to the end it's almost getting dirty!_

_And_**_look_**_where 'she's' going now,_**_look_**_what 'she's' doing now,'_

Ruby red eyes turns his way, blood-coloured teethes, canines, freaking canines is showed his way. Thin lips pulls slowly up into a dangerous snarl. He backs away as some of them moves to stand up.

_'I'm scared and her haunting me doesn't help me one bit.'_

He should run, turn away and run, and he does.

_'Please… someone…help me…!_

'_She's' hot on my tail, the disgusting face of fate.'_

He couldn't agree more with the singer, as the song dies out in a painful jumble of noises. He almost stumbles down the stairs to get away as fast as possible. He almost falls over a drunkard on his way as he runs, runs as fast as his legs can carry him; his followers hot on his tail.

'_Oh God, help me. Help me!_' His lungs stings too much to scream it out, but he isn't even sure that anyone ever would have heard him.

So they did exist, these creatures of darkness.

The sky is pitch-black, only the moon shines lonely on the dark ceiling above this world.

He has a bad feeling about that he will die this night.

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_**To be continued**_

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	2. Dead Man Walking

Until you will Laugh Again

A fan fiction by Crystalbluefox

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Chapter 1

Dead Man Walking

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When Zoro hears a knock on his window and sees Sanji sitting out on the windowsill, he knows that something is up and not just a joke. Normally the blond just barge inside as he likes, and through a _door_,but when he has to say "Come in", he knows that something is alarmingly wrong. Especially when he notices those piercing ruby-red eyes instead of those deep ocean blues he's known for, Zoro finally understands the problem.

And Sanji knows that Zoro knows, the moment he jumps into his apartment and hisses away from the lamplights that suddenly feels too sharp for his eyes. The daylight is even worse; it's almost like walking blind. He even has to walk around in his long-sleeved tuxedo to be sure that he won't get sunburned.

He slumps against the nearest wall and eyes the man in front of him. His vision is more than sharp, even though he feels more than tired. He has come here to end this, he does not even lift a brow as Zoro eyes him, taking in his state, looking his old friend up and down who have been missing for weeks. He knows that he looks pale, more than normal, more than what would be considered healthy for a normal human being. But he is that no longer.

He musters the last of his withering strength to stand tall and strong in front of his friend, waiting for him to judge, to take him down with his two swords on the wall and end this blasted curse, like he normally would do to creatures like him. He hates himself for what he has become…Hates himself to the deepest corners of damnation.

Zoro opens his mouth but then reconsiders it and closes it again. He looks him in the eyes, red as blood they are, Sanji hates them too. He liked his blue ones; the girls did too, even though he was never that lucky with them.

"You hungry?" Zoro's tone is inquiring and careful, taking Sanji aback by the genuine sincerity that those words hold. He splutters, not prepared for this shockingly dull relaxed reaction at all; he had been so sure and ready for Zoro to snarl and curse at him before finally killing him. There is wariness in the man's movements, in his eyes, but nothing else other than that. Sanji hesitantly runs a cold hand through his hair and down his face, watching the man relaxing as he nods silently and weakly tweaks out a dry "Yeah."

Zoro nods understanding, his fingers flexing, and his hands clenching and unclenching. He swears that he can hear the man's heart beating rapidly; he even dares to say that he can smell the nervousness in his aura, but even so his voice is steady and calm.

"I can help you with that." It's an understatement to say that he's more than shocked as he looks up at the man in front of him. He can't believe his ears as he watches his friend step closer to him, while he himself steps warily back against the walls.

"H-how?" He gulps, suddenly dreading the answer as the question passes his quivering lips. Though in reality, this was the reason to as to why he came; to hear it, for it to be done and finished, but he saw no murder intent in the other's eyes. But then again, this is the dangerous aspect of this man. You never can read him when he's going to attack you. But Sanji knows him; at least he thinks he does. They have known each other since childhood, except certain circumstances can change things between even the bests of friends.

And he's ready for it.

Zoro notes his every nervous movement, even though his left eye almost got fully blinded from an attack last summer, it can still read him like a preying tiger. "You're lucky that I'm around," he says, and Sanji can feel his eyes follow each of his moves carefully. He does not meet Zoro's gaze and instead keeps his eyes on the floor.

"How is that?" Sanji asks, feeling more nervous about the situation, because _that want _to lunge himself at him grows, _that want _to attack him, to rip him open and – he stops his track of mind to go any further than that and unconsciously shakes his head. He looks at him through the curtain of his blond hair, because he can't make himself raise his head. His eyes flick to Zoro's extended arm, the clean upturned wrist where he – if he listens carefully to it - can hear the blood rushing through the veins. The man smirks back at him, like he's daring him to do something, to see if he chickens out, but Sanji doesn't really get it, totally over saw the challenge because he couldn't dare to believe what Zoro is even hinting before the words comes out.

"You can have some of my blood."

Sanji stands fully still, unable to pull his eyes away from that bidding wrist.

"I'm not a, monster," he hisses out, eyes stayed firmly on the tempting wrist.

"I know," Zoro says "You're not, but you need it."

"Why," he gulps, it's hard to track his mind away from what's just right in front of him, if he had a pulse it would be rising dangerously now. "Why are you doing this to me? I'm a, a… _that_!Shouldn't you - they're hanging just over there, the one of them are even howling to want to slit through my heart!"

"I don't kill my friends," he continues, tone serious. "Not if I can help it. What happened to you is not your fault. You are still you, right?" he tilts his head to catch his eyes, but Sanji is using all of his strength to not just attack. "Right?" he presses on. Sanji nods carefully, but says nothing.

Zoro makes a huffing sound as the blond still doesn't react to his reasoning and moves in close enough so that Sanji can feel what was left of the heat from his earlier slumbering emanating from his sudden awoken body.

"Well, don't just sulk around all night, Eat." He urges.

"You don't have to do it," He starts to protest weakly, Zoro cuts him off.

"I know. I don't have to, but I will let you."

He licks his lips, feeling how much his body craves for it. "What if I take too much?"

"You won't."

"What if I can't stop?"

"I'll stop you." Zoro says stubbornly, ensuring him that he can and will. Sanji bites his lips.

"Wouldn't it be easier if-"

"Shut it and eat!"

Sanji shuts it for a moment and looks warily at his friend before looking down again. Every cell in his body craves him to bite, to taste it, and it's about to drive him mad.

"You'll tell me if I'm taking too much," he says, sternly "though it would be better to just -"

"You know, if you keep up with this stupid stubbornness, your body will give in and take over anyway. It's only natural, but it'll leave a horrible mess." Zoro points out, not worried in the least that the victim would probably be himself, and the mess mostly would be the remains of the blond.

Sanji sighs deeply, hands shaking even more than they did before. They're as cold as did they belong to a dead man in a grave. And that should be where he belongs to, not here among all this _life_. "I know," he shakily says, hating every piece of himself, of what he have become, but Zoro is right. If he doesn't take on the offer, his mind soon will go blank and his body will take over the haunting.

He hates it. He hates himself more than anything.

"But-"

"No _but's_," Zoro intervenes and orders him to sit at the sofa, he even reaches for his shoulders and leads him all the way to it. Sanji complies and sits uncomfortable in the seat as Zoro takes a seat right next to him and once again extends his arm to him, palm open, offering. The life is beating through those veins, singing to him, calling for him. Sanji swallows hard. It's almost unbearable to not give in. "Eat!" he orders. Sanji looks up at his old friend, ensuring himself that the offer still is at hand, quite literally, and leans down. The life-giving heat is beating up at him. He takes his arm, rolls up the shirt a bit further up, his warm skin almost burns his own cold fingers, almost to the point were he wants to pull away, but he doesn't, and Zoro would beat the hell shit out of him if he did that now. And Zoro _could _beat the hell shit out of him, when he was in this weak horrible state he was in.

His heart is beating, though that it should have been dead, though it should have been still.

Sanji carefully lifts Zoro's wrist up to his lips, the scent of iron overwhelms him so much, that it almost makes him lunch at the man and bite off his arm instead. Sanji shivers just by the thought of how easily this can become reality. He leans down, opens his mouth warily and bites down. The two white pointy teethes breaks the skin, as precise as he can manage, the other still-human teethes opens the wounds just a bit more. The blood is hot on his tongue, in his throat. His heart beats, craves more of the liquid so it can pulse it through his system, his own body, to give life to an already dead body.

"_They're not dead, not really,_" Zoro's words tells him, words he once have heard for a long time ago when his friend told him about those creatures he now had become one of, when the man in front of him admitted that 'yes', he was a vampire hunter as well.

Sanji eyes the man in front of him through the blond bangs of his own hair. Zoro is sitting absolutely still in his seat, like he was nothing but a harmless mosquito biting through his skin, about to drink his blood, and Sanji is thankful for that – he's thankful for Zoro, thankful for his offer to him. He closes his eyes and swallows the warm red liquid down his throat, it feels surprisingly good, it feels calming, his whole body are humming for the blood that his brain tries to stop thinking are blood.

He had come here to get this miserable life of his ended, because he knew who Zoro was, but instead of taking his life, Zoro was giving a part of his own life to him.

Sanji hums and can't stop himself from doing it. It feels so good, it taste like a flavour that he never have experienced before, a flavour that he feels like he always have tried to bring out of food, but never managed so. He swallows again and again and again. He does not need to come up for air, he does not need to stop to breathe; he is breathing through this man's veins. The warmth is pooling at his core, the cold retreats from his fingertips, they are no longer trembling. A fire rekindling somewhere deep inside of him, where he is still mortal, where he is still human, _alive_, where hunger had started to breach.

Sanji's lapping the blood into his own system, he's drinking without thinking, like the nights where they used to be out in town to party, to just to get drunk and be stupid. He's drunk now, without having to encounter the hangover the next day.

Zoro lets him drink until he is sated, lets him drink more than that, until Sanji's eyes snaps open in realisation and the blond wrenches himself away with a strangled, confused noise.

"Shit," he says, sounding breathless in the only way you can sound breathless when you don't need to breathe. "_They do breathe_," Zoro's old words once again pop up in his memory and he doesn't want to remember that just now _"They don't have to, but they do, because they are still humans with bad side effects. Those who stop to breathe, stops to want being human and only wants to be those monsters as we know of."_ Sanji pulls away disgusted at himself. His tongue darts out to lick his lower lip, but he catches himself, horrified. "_Shit!_"

"I was handling it," Zoro insists, though he looks paler than what Sanji did when he came. "No big deal. You were hungry, you-" he's slurring and Zoro's aware of that too, he feels lightheaded and Sanji can almost _feel _that the man in front of him feels lightheaded, that he's feeling sick. Sanji feels sick about himself.

The blond stands abruptly and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. He feels much stronger now yet in return Zoro looks much weaker than he ever has seen him before, and suddenly he hates himself all over again. He looks at the backside of his hand, at the blood, at _Zoro's _blood. He dries the blood off in his pant legs, catching himself in groaning from the little loss. '_Monster!_'

"You should have told me if I was taking too much!" he lashes out, feeling himself stepping back. Zoro looks at him, tiredly.

"You weren't" the man stubbornly says, looks down at his still bleeding wrist and moves it up to the blond. "You left some." The idiot can still muster a smirk, weak, but a smirk there's big enough to irritate Sanji.

"Bullshit! And stop saying that!" he seethes, voice rising, fists clenching and unclenching fitfully, feeling heady and incongruously light. "I don't need you to do that for me! I don't need your ass-fucked jokes!"

Zoro sighs, lower his hand again and says, wearily, "If you're done, would you please shut the fuck up and get the bandages?"

Sanji open his mouth to argue, but eyes the still bleeding wrist, and closes it without saying a word. Something irks in him when he sees the blood, when he can still smell the all too sharp scent, a smell he never have could smell before in his life. He realizes that he isn't dizzy anymore; he doesn't feel sick anymore - he realizes that he feels better than he had in weeks, if even in months. And when he realizes this, the shame amplifies and he had to grit his teeth to keep himself from shouting at Zoro again. A stab through his heart, a blade sliding through his throat, his neck, and his spine would have been much better, because he realises that he would need to have more, again later, again and again and again. Always and forever. His body would never be satisfied with just one time. And Zoro would probably not be there forever to help him each time – but who was he to think that the man ever _would _help him like this again? He is too naïve sometimes.

He would have ended it himself, if he could, but all those times he had tried were effortless, even when he had tried harder when the hunger had started to pain him, when the hunger was too unbearable and no food or alcohol in the world could satisfy that ever growing hunger. Zoro didn't know this especially when there's no need for him to. It was unnecessary information. Absolutely unnecessary.

He storms out of the living room, out into the bathroom but halts as he closes the cabinet and stares surprised into the mirror. His eyes are back to normal, they're blue again like they used to. He touches the cold glass before touching his own face. He's warm, not cold as a corpse anymore. Opening his mouth he sees that even his two canines has grown back to normal sized teethes, but are still a bit pointier than they used to. Zoro's groans from the living room pulls him back to the matter of hand and he storms back in to him again. He's even faster than he remembers he normally is. He sits back down with the first aid kit on his lap, throws it open with an angry mutter and glares pointedly at Zoro, who extends his arm towards him with the air of someone resigned to have to go through something very unpleasant.

Sanji halts and feels his heart beat fast again. His mouth feels dry and he doesn't even realise what he's doing before he has taken the offered hand and his mouth are looming over the wound again. His tongue darts out to lick the blood up and suddenly he wants to bite the man again, to drink more, until there are no more to drink, but he stops himself there. He's not like _that_. He's not like _them._

And yet he feels the blood stream down through his throat again, tastes it against his tongue and mouth. He licks it up and he drinks some more.

"Sanji."

Only when Zoro moans out his name, his real name that he rarely uses, he jolts back to realisation. "Shit. Shit!" He had bitten him again, been drinking more of his blood and made the man bleed even more.

He lets go of the hand as if it had burned him and starts pulling the shit out of the kit while he rambles his apologizes and gets even more furious with himself. He wants to harm himself, he knows that he can, he just can't die from it. The pain, the punishment is what he needs. Zoro sits there still as a statue and says nothing, before;

"That's too tight,"

Sanji ignores him, wraps the bandages around Zoro's wrist even tighter out of spite, with irrational malice. More to himself than anyone else and to Zoro for letting him do that little act as well. He growls at the man's next comment, it's as deep as an animals growl.

"Blondie, you're cutting my hand off if you keep on with that. I don't want to lose it. I have a class to tend to tomorrow," Zoro informs him, calmly. Sanji glares again, livid and violently grateful, and he lets up.

"Thanks."

"Shut up," he snaps automatically, throws the first aid kit onto the stained coffee table. He winces when he realises that it is blood there has stained the surface of the furniture. Zoro's blood. He sets his jaw, makes a conscious, painful effort. "I mean, you're welcome," he manages, haltingly. A pause and a deep sigh. "Thank you."

Zoro shrugs, a one-shouldered motion, before he stands up wobbly on his legs. He looks like he's about to pass out at any second, but he stubbornly moves over to the fridge to get them a beer each, like in the old days. Sanji looks down in his hands as the man barely manages to return back to his seat next to him, and leans his head down onto his own knees to lay calm on his dizziness.

"I'm sorry."

"Save it!" Zoro groans into his legs before sitting back up. God, he looks way too sick. "I don't need you to be sorry." 

Sanji glares at him. "How else am I supposed to feel like? Oh, Zoro, good evening, I am here to leech off you like another insect – literally. Cheers pall!" He scowls in exasperation. "What do you expect? And why'd you even help me?"

Zoro growls. "You're my friend."

"I'm a _vampire _god damn it!" he roars, stands up and smacks a hand to his own chest "A freaking bloodsucker! A monster who needs to - who doesn't… Fuck! Why did you just not cut off my head already? Or stab my heart or whatever shit you need to do?!"

"You're not a monster."

"I need _blood_ to keep myself sane!"

"You need blood to keep yourself alive!"

"So, if I just don't drink any, then-"

"Don't you even _dare _to go that way, Curlieque! You need it, and I'll give it to you!"

"What?" Sanji's taken aback, they're both standing, both up in each others faces, Zoro's temple feels cold and wet against his own now warm and dry skin.

Zoro sighs and sits trembling back down again, Sanji soon follow suit. "When you need it, just come and I'll give you some of mine. And then we can drink and watch a stupid movie, like in the old days."

"I didn't need any blood _in the old days_," he bites out sharply, hating this, wishing that he just could return back to as it was back then, just a couple months back, before… _that_ _evening_. He looks his friend in the eyes and stares at the wounded one, the one with a scar running straight over it, the one there are much fainter in colour than the other dark grey eye, the one that have been half blinded by a creature like _him_. "What if I take too much?" he asks for the second time this evening, more desperate than before.

"I keep telling you I can _handle it_," Zoro growls. 

"Yeah, and look what almost just happened!" he snaps back.

"I stopped you."

"Yeah, well maybe I won't be able to stop the next time!"

"Maybe you should give yourself some more credits, you fucking idiot!" He hasn't even realised how loud they have become before Zoro's roar stops him from saying anything else next. He looks down on the can. He's not even thirsty, but still wants it, just to feel a bit like a human again. Would he even be able to feel drunk again? Yes, yes he can, he remembers verily, his tolerant has just intensified, almost close to Zoro's. Almost. He would bet that the man could still out drink him. But he didn't trust himself enough to get drunk again, not yet. "Sanji." He presses on. Sanji shakes his head.

"How can you even trust me?"

Zoro takes a swallow of his beer and points a finger at him, Sanji looks from the wrist laying lifeless in the man's own lap and up to that finger. "Your eyes, they're blue again. A_ monster keeps_ their eyes red, since they hunger for blood way too much, they can't control, don't even _want _to control it. They are even enjoying the kill. Someone like you, who still clings to be a human, _are _still a human – don't you dare try to interrupt me! - and will still look like a human."

"But I still need _blood_, you shit for brains!"

"So? Come when you need it." Zoro yawns and empties his can before almost tossing it back to the table. Sanji had barely touched his own. "I'm tired, m'going to sleep." He proclaims as he makes himself comfortable in the sofa. Sanji turns red in the face, furious at how easily the other takes this, as if this was a normal occurrence between the two of them. How could that oaf not see the problem in it?

"I - Stupid asshole! I'm _not _coming back again!" he growls "Hey! Listen when I'm scolding at you, you bastard!"

Zoro chuckles and smirks in his sleep. Sanji stands up abruptly, turns around sharply and launches himself the same way he came in, muttering curses all the way out. Zoro snorts, he's not that deep into his sleep yet. "You can still use a door, you damn drama queen." He says and slumbers down into a deep sleep. Some time later he senses the return of the other man, cracking an eye open he sees him sitting there crouched on the windowsill, the untouched beer in his hand and watches him carefully. Zoro closes his eye and smirks inwardly '_that's more like stalking, you idiot,_'before he's pulled yet again to the land of dreams.

In the morning Sanji was gone again, an empty can standing lonely on the windowsill was the only indication on that he had ever been there.

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_**To be continued**_

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**A.U: **Then came the long waited story that I have been working on for so long. I hope that you guys likes it, I certainly does, but it saddens me that I have got none to very few reviews for those stories that I've posted lately, it makes me think twice about if what I write isn't that good again. So review & review and tell me what you think of this so far^c^

Love & Hugs

Crystalbluefox


	3. The Green Old Bench

Until you will Laugh Again

A fan fiction by Crystalbluefox

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Chapter 2

The Green Old Bench

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The door to Zoro's apartment swings open and Zoro stands there looking like he had just roused from a way too short nap, even though it's almost eight in the evening.

"Yeah?" Zoro yawns loudly, blatant, and it's all Sanji can do not to launch himself across the threshold and slaughter him.

"Let me in, asshole," he grinds out through clenched teeth, and if he weren't so exhausted, he would even had snarled a little bit for added effect, but he is already slumped against the doorframe, and beside, the idiot in front of him never, ever gets easily scared. It's just not a Zoro-thing to do.

Though he remembers he once had succeed in scaring the hell shit out of this man, once when Zoro had been drinking and Sanji didn't feel safe about sitting in the seat next to a driver who had been drinking, even though the man could hold his liquid pretty well. Zoro had been clamping his nails into the dashboard and almost pushed his legs through the bottom of the car, while Sanji had been steering the Land Rover home to his apartment to pick up a large gift he had bought to Nami's birthday. Sanji had laughed so hard that he almost had driven into a lamppost, when the man had shouted at him that he didn't want his car to turn into a coffin. Since then Zoro had made it a law never to let him drive ever again, "_You're a_ _fucking psycho when sitting behind a wheel, you out to kill us or anything? How the hell did you ever manage to get a driver license in the first place?!_" Zoro had cursed at him, looking scared as shit –Sanji even had made fun of him about that he had pissed in his pants of pure fear, surprisingly the man was still in too much shock to do anything and sulk and mumble small curses his way. Since then Zoro made sure to either walk home with him or take a taxi or the bus if they had been out drinking.

God, he had never laughed so hard in his life… and probably never would again.

"You pushed it too much this time, Curlicue," Zoro says, who clearly can see through his dark sunglasses. Sanji glares at him through them, the red eyes shining dangerously; of course it does no shit to the other who just looks unaffected at him. "You can barely stand this time."

"Just let me in already, shithead,"

Zoro steps aside and looks at him expectantly, a single eyebrow raised. Sanji glares even harder at him, pale and statuesque, until Zoro rolls his eyes and sighs, "Fine, fine. _Come in._" He walks away, leaving the door open.

Sanji enters and slams the door behind him with enough force to rattle the dishes in the kitchen, even those old windows makes a sound. Zoro does not even wince.

"Hungry?" Zoro's tone are never mocking when he asks the same question every time he comes, more like inquiring, and it always makes Sanji to hesitate, run a cold hand down his face, fumble with something while looking everywhere but at the man and nod silently in return. He steps further into the apartment, keeping to the walls, away from the lamplights. He stands there as Zoro pushes some stuff away from the old couch and puts them over onto an old bench there far from belonged to a living room, yet alone in an apartment.

Sanji remembers the day clearly when the two of them had literally carried that shitty old green-seated bench with them home to Zoro's apartment, because they both had found the old thing being very nice and comfortable to sleep on. Hell, they had been drunk that night, even Zoro. It was the first and last time he ever had seen the man drunk at all. The bench got its place in the corner of the living room, and Sanji had often teased him with that he should go get a streetlamp instead of that floor lamp next to it. He even had bought him two flowered pillows for his birthday, to boost the man's anger, and yet the two old pillows had got their place on the bench. And the bench had gotten its place there in the corner, firstly; because it would be too big of a work to get it back down, secondly; because they had no hell idea of from which park it belonged to or where the heck they had gotten it from at all, and thirdly; it reminded the vampire hunter never to get that intoxicated ever again.

Zoro suddenly stands right in his view and takes off his sunglasses to inspect his eyes closely, apparently since the man had said something and Sanji hadn't been listening. "Four weeks are far too long to walk without anything to eat."

"I've eaten, ya know, I _can _cook food," Zoro rolls his eyes at him.

"You know what I mean."

Sanji shrugs "I can push it till five weeks the next time, no big deal."

"Don't be an idiot, five weeks and you'll barely be able to crawl anywhere. You'll be like an animal that will attack any living thing." Sanji halts and bites the inside of his lips while looking anywhere but at the man in front of him. Zoro sighs and puts the sunglasses into his breast pocket "Sorry, I shouldn't have said that."

"It's okay," Sanji says nonchalantly "It's only the truth, like hell I'll ever become like that." It gets awkward after that, so Zoro just extends his arm to him so they can get over with it. His eyes flick to the offered arm, the upturned wrist a web of white starburst of scars, old and new ones. He looks away again, suddenly feeling sick.

"You don't have to do this," he starts to protest weakly, Zoro cuts him off.

"I know, you're not making me, I'm offering to you."

"You always say that."

"Because it keeps on being the truth, and you keep on forgetting it every time, idiot,"

Sanji has nothing to say to that and moves to sit at the old couch that the other has cleaned for stuff to make room for the two of them. Zoro moves along and takes a seat right next to him.

"You'll tell me if I'm taking too much," he says sternly, looking anywhere but at him. Zoro shrugs.

"You always say that,"

"Because I always want to ensure that you're ready to stop me!" he snarls, showing off two white pointy teeth there has grown to fangs -they does that every time the hunger for blood comes- though it does nothing to scare the other who doesn't even flinch.

"Just shut up and eat."

"God, sometimes you're a real pain in the ass," Sanji says and takes hold of the extended arm, the skin are almost burning hot in contrast to his dead cold fingers. When he moves the wrist up to his lips, he can hear the warm blood rushing through the veins right underneath the skin, welcoming him, calling for him, tempting him.

"Oh? Only sometimes?" Zoro says and gives him a shit eating grin "Now I have to do something about that," Sanji glares up at him through his bangs of light blond hair. While mumbling about "shitty idiots with shitty attitudes", he bites down, breaks the white skin on the wrist, and has to hold back for not to just suck it, but drinks it carefully. Zoro are absolutely still in his seat.

He drinks, thinks of nothing but of what he is doing. He is entranced in the task as he feels the blood pass down his throat, down into his stomach and from there spreading out into his system. He can feel himself getting stronger from each mouthful he drinks, he can feel the cold cease away and the warmth return back into his body, the tiredness retreats and he's in absolutely bliss.

Zoro lets him drink what he needs, more than that, even further than that, until Sanji realises it and flings himself off the man. "Shit, you asshole! I _told _you to stop me if I was taking too much!" Sanji says terrified, barking at the man.

"I was handling it." Zoro insist, slurring, pale as the walls around them, the perfect picture of someone who is about to pass out.

"Like hell you were, fucking retard!" Sanji darts out to the bathroom, returns in a blink of an eye and flings the first aid box open to get the bandages out. He cleans the wounds, while Zoro's swaying in his seat. "Shit!"

"You needed it,"

"Shut up! I'm not talking to you now!"

Silence, until:

"I can't feel ma hand anymore. Blondie, you cutting off ma hand. I nee that hand for tomorrow." Sanji glares at him, about to bark something back, but holds back as he sees the state his friend is in and gives in. "Thanks."

"Shut up!" he snaps back automatically and gets a chill as he feels some kind of Déjà vu. Almost like the first time. "I mean, I'm sorry, I –shit." he stands up to walk away, to disappear out through the door, for this time to not return back, like he had done all the other times. He has done enough damage as it is. But Zoro grabs hold of his wrist before he can get anywhere further away and looks up at him with a serious look on his face.

"Make me food."

"What?" Sanji stutters, looking milder bewildered at the man.

"You deaf?" The other said, one eyebrow moving up.

"No, I mean; what the fuck are you all of a sudden talking about?"

Zoro lets go of his hand and points to the kitchen "Food," he points at the blond "you," then reaches his one arm out and makes a motion like steering into something "cook," and finally points at himself "for me."

Sanji has to hold himself back to not just attack the man and rip his head off. "Fucking idiot, I'm not a slow retard as you are!" he growls out through his teethes and flings out to the kitchen before he leans in to the temptation to kick the fuckers face in, as he gives him a shit-eating grin in return and opens his mouth with a "mwah," like a bird waiting to get feed.

~.-.-.-.-.-.-.~

It's almost like in the old days; him standing in the kitchen, the idiot snoring his time away on the couch, though this time he has a really good reason to do so. Sanji frowns at it and moves the pan away from the burner, for then to replace it with a kettle of water. He stands there for a moment to take in his surroundings, while his body works on its own as it has done the same movements so many times, that he practically can do it with closed eyes. He'd bet that the man hadn't even moved any of his stuff in the cupboards, and just so, his mind-lost body finds a heating-bowl just at the second shelf in the cupboard right next to his head. He pours the food up in the bowl and places the glass-lid on top so it can keep warm for a longer time, while his mind has wandered far away; to a time where he actually had a life and didn't have to drain one of his friends from blood and energy.

Mind wandering further away it comes to a time he has tried to suppress too many times. Dark shadows in an alley. It was the night after a party, he was alone, and he wanted to go visit one of his friends. Then he found _her_, on the floor in her own kitchen. Loud music playing. He ran, never felt so scared in his life before. Then the attack. Blood. Pain. The absolutely horror. Dying, facing his murderess who laughed back down at him, before one dug down and-

"Argh shit!" He hisses and curses as he stares down at his burned hand. He had subconsciously grabbed the still burning hot pan in a tight grasp, there in exchange had burned his hand so it now was flaming red, literally had burned down to the third layer of skin and created small blisters. Hurriedly placing the pan aside he hurries to the sink to cool the skin, but only after a small of twenty seconds, the red skin and the second degrees burning slowly grows smaller for then to fully disappear, leaving no traces left of that the hand just had been burned by the stupid shitty pan. Sanji moves the hand out from the streaming cold water and just stares at it; no wounds, nothing. It's both a nice side-effect of being a vampire and a bad one; wounds healing too fast keeps on reminding him that he are no longer a human, like his friends. It's the same with his sight; everything seems _sharper _to him, his vision are clearer and even his hearing has become so much better that he literally can hear every little sounds there is inside of this apartment and if he concentrates himself enough, he even can hear what people in the apartments two levels down are mumbling about. It's both interesting and annoying as hell.

Zoro's breathing is changing, he's about to wake up. Sanji straightens himself up and makes the table ready, he could finish it in a blink of an eye, but it would only make him feel less human. So he takes his time, how dreadful it might feel, and just as he places the last silverware on the table, Zoro is sitting on the cough, face turned to look over its back to look straight at Sanji's doing. Sanji gives him a small smile as he turns around. "Your lazy ass finally chose to wake up?" Zoro grumbles in answer. He stands up; swaying just a little as he moves to the table and all the words that Sanji wanted to say dies on his lips, because he knows that the dizziness and the uncomfortable is _his _fault.

He sits down and watches as Zoro digs into the food placed onto his plate, but suddenly Zoro halts. His brows furrows as he looks like someone who doesn't know if they should swallow what they had in their mouth or spit it back out.

"Is it that bad?" he asks worriedly "I forgot that my taste buts need stronger flavour now, so I didn't realise that-"

"It's good." Sanji halts in his speech.

"R-really?" Zoro nods and Sanji can now see that he is actually savouring the food in his mouth slowly, carefully.

"Strong in taste, but good. Really good." Sanji want to beam a bright smile, but gives him only an apologetic small one and looks down on his own empty plate.

"Thanks." He murmurs before allowing himself to digging in as well. He can taste the food, but only if it gets a strong flavour in it. He doesn't hunger that much for actually food anymore, therefore he way too often forgets to even eat. When he doesn't eat actual food for a longer time of period, the hunger for something else starts growing. Therefore he tries to remember to eat meals like he always did in old times, just so that the hunger for something else will take a longer time to show itself to him. He wasn't like _them_, he didn't _want _tobe like _them_.

But he can't keep pretending all his life.

The kettle whistles, waking him up from his deep thoughts. He goes to take it off, but halts as he catches himself staring into the blue flames created by gas. Fire. It reminds him of something, like back in the second grade in school where his classmates had dared him to hold a hand over a flame of a candle as long as possible, even to move a finger _into_ the fire without pulling a face. He always lost in those competitions, his mom even scolded at him as he once came home with a large burn covering the inside of his left hand. He stared at that hand where the old scar was almost not visible any longer, there was only a slight change in the skin there stretched tight over the palm, but it was there. He couldn't stop to be too entranced in that blue fire. Would the mark fully return back to his skin if he touched the fire this time? Or would it disappear, like the last drops of his humanity?

"For God's sake,_ SANJI!_" He distantly hears a chair scramble to the floor before his hand is being ripped out from the blue flames. He isn't even at his full senses as he is being pulled to the sink, only when he sees Zoro's panicked face staring directly at him while trying to stop the fire there has caught on his sleeves. "The fuck you think that you were doing? You ought to-" _kill yourself?_ They both know that that would have been the next words. Sanji gasps as he finally realises what he just have done to himself. Zoro curses as he holds the hand underneath the cold running water from the tap. "Shit! This doesn't look well at all." He more says to himself than anyone else, since he has caught on that Sanji is in mild shock himself.

The hand is bright red, burned till the blood has boiled, burned until it has turned into a disgusting black crisp. He wants to throw up. Even the horrible disgusting smell of burned meat emitting from his hand, tricks his senses to want to throw up.

"It's okay," he hears himself saying, even though he is not sure himself "It'll heal again."

Zoro just stares at him like he is some big idiot -and he probably is. The hand in the water trembles as it finally registers the pain it had been put through. He wants to throw up.

"I need to-" is all he says before he faces the sink and empties the contents of his stomach into it. God. He feels sick, but a vampire doesn't suppose to feel like this, right?

"Shut up and get out with it." He hadn't even realised that he had voiced those words out loud, but doesn't complain and takes a second round into the sink.

~.-.-.-.-.-.-.~

Sanji was starting to get a bit nervous as the time stretched to hours. Zoro had lost his appetite for now, he said, since his whole apartment now smelled of burned meat and puke. He stored the food away for when his appetite would return with the smell of fresh clean air. Sanji's hand had only changed a little bit, but it was taking too long.

"What did you expect?" Zoro says, glancing his way as the blond, sitting on the old green bench, tries to flex his hand, without any luck "That it would suddenly 'pouf' heal and your hand mobile in a matter of seconds?"

"It didn't take that long last time." Sanji murmurs, Zoro only raises a brow in honour for him.

"That was like just a hot pan, this was directly into the fire. Idiot!" Sanji doesn't say anything and just stares at the still crisp-burned hand. He pulls a small smile some time after.

"It's not as black as before, it has even started to heal a bit around the wound."

"You know, it's creepy seeing you sitting all still like a statue over there, staring at your own hand." Sanji just glares at him.

"Aren't you supposed to sleep somewhere? I thought that even plants needed rest."

"Stop teasing my hair."

"Oh, so you knew it _was _your so called hair that I was talking about?"

"Oh, shut up."

Silence.

"How long time has gone?"

"What?" Zoro nods to his burned hand.

"Since that."

"Oh," he looks up to find the clock, though he has a feeling that he doesn't need a clock to look at.

"No, don't look at the clock; tell me exactly how long time has gone."

"The hell? Want me to make a guess or something?"

"You know it," Zoro looks straight up at him from his slumped place at the sofa "right?"

Sanji swallows, closes his eyes and thinks. "Two hours, twenty-seven minutes and thirteen seconds, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen-"

"Yeah okay, that's enough." Zoro interrupts, before the blond turns into a living clock, an annoying clock on top of that. "Thirty-three minutes more to go then."

"What?"

"A burn normally takes about three hours to heal, depending on how bad it is."

"Three hours?" Sanji questions, Zoro nods tiredly. The man is still way too pale and definitely needs rest. "Do I even want to know _why _you know such facts?"

"No."

"Thought so."

~.-.-.-.-.-.-.~

It takes exactly three hours, eleven minutes and forty seconds before the hand is completely healed. Sanji is still a bit freaked out about that he can tell the exact amount of time there has passed, Zoro says that that is just a vampire-thing, end of discussion; the man is too tired to want to give a lecture in anything at all.

Zoro stands right in front of him, swaying on his feet and are more than ready to pass out, but the man is too stubborn to give in to such a little thing as sleepiness, that jerk. He inspects the hand from one side and another –Sanji is happily surprised to see that his old burn mark from second grade has returned to his skin, Zoro points out that the body memorize its old wounds and returns them back as they once where, unless you get your hand fully chopped off and tossed it out into the suns strongest beams of light, now _that _would be a problem. Sanji tells him to go suck himself, since he doesn't need to hear such things right now. The idiot only gives him an annoying smirk, goes back to the sofa and almost falls asleep before he even lands on the thing.

Sanji sits there on the old park-bench and watches the man snoring away. He has to go, he knows that he needs to, but he can't find himself wanting to move up from this old tree-bench. Memories from when they brought this shitty old thing up through the long stairs, there that time seemed to have no end to it, makes him want to stay on it. He remembers now that one of the apartments neighbours had opened the door just as they were about to pass him and had asked what the hell they where doing. Sanji remembers that he had smiled brightly back at the man and said that _"It's a ve-y ve-y niceee benk thes hear."_ Zoro had chirped in with that it was indeed a _niceee benk_ and a _"very, very frienshy, frendy, something-one as well_."

The neighbour had just shook his head mumbling about crazy young people these days, while he had disappeared back into his home.

Sanji had been the one falling asleep on this bench, once they finally had gotten it up, Zoro had laid on the floor, exactly four feet away from the bench, nose buried into the carpet.

Sanji settles himself on the bench, lies down on his back and looks up onto his now fully healed hand, staring at the still weakly visible old burn scar. That scar, together with the one he had on his back, third vertebra from below, and the one Zoro had given him after a little fight there included swords and naked feet, is what is left there reminds him what he once had been and what he somehow still is; a human. He touches his shoulder just where that old scar is, a stab from a sword, before he closes his eyes and tries to get into something there reminds just a little bit of sleep. He wants to keep that feeling, of still being partly a human.

He likes that lie.

~.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.~

_**To be continued**_

~.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.~


	4. Absorbing the Taste

**AU:** Thank you for all of your reviews, it made me really happy to see, when it finally got any response. I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas with those you love, and I wish you a Happy New year, this New Year Morning, tomorrow starts a new year, with hopefully more good things to come.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYBODY, and enjoy your reading

~Crystalbluefox

* * *

Until you will Laugh Again

A fan fiction by Crystalbluefox

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Chapter 3

Absorbing the Taste

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Vivi looks at Zoro expectantly, her high heels clicking impatiently against the marvelled floors, arms crossed underneath her large bosom.

"Don't lie to me, Zoro, I can see it when you does, and when you does it, you know how angry that will make me. What do you need that loan for? It's unusual for you to actually come and even _want _a loan in the first place." One blond eyebrow rises expectantly at him, as she awaits his answer. Zoro sighs, scratches his neck nervously, but then surrenders and grabs a block with paper and her pen to write it down. It would sound crazy if he ever spoke it out loud. Vivi tries to read his scribble scrabble from upside down, but with no luck. As he slides the block and pen back to her, he leans back into the chair and awaits her judge.

Vivi is a sweet woman, but a devil if you ever dared lying to her. It was just that there were some things he didn't like to discuss with her, since she were one of those few people who had seen and even survived a counter with those there had literally ripped her mother into pieces, right in front of her eyes as she were only a mere child. _Vampires._ She hated them as a plague, but of course, no one had never believed her. She was just a child with a lively imagination. Her own father had even scolded her for even saying such things about how her beloved mother passed away. She had been _"hit by a train"_, and it was _"tragic"_ that Vivi should see that at age five, but all the other stuff was nothing but brutal lies… they said. When Zoro and Vivi once met, and when Vivi once figured out what he was doing for a part living, she told him and did everything in her power to help him to "_slaughter those murderes!_"

"Of course," Vivi whispers, rips the two sheets of papers off and puts them through the paper shredder, there hungrily eat them and rips them to small pieces. The raucous machine silences right after there is no more paper to 'eat'. "You know, you don't have to take a loan for such things, Zoro."

"I can't burden you with constantly borrowing money from you, it's not fair."

"I don't mind, Zoro, and you know it. Things like that is not even a question to be asked for, you just have to come-"

"No, Vivi. I can't take more moneys from you. Just, give me a loan. I will figure out how to pay it back." He ensures her, both knowing that such a high sum will be hard for the man to ever pay back again. But Vivi finally gives in, puts her check book away and finds the right papers to fill out.

She stops in the middle of her writing, then sighs as she looks disdain down on her paperwork.

"What?" Zoro asks, not liking the grimy line forming on her temple. Vivi sighs again, moves some papers around before glancing up at the man sitting right in front of her, for then to stare absently at her pen.

"It's just," she starts carefully and suddenly Zoro knows what all of this is about. He hates these talks, since it always forms a lump in his throat, so big that he barely can breathe "I was suddenly thinking of Sanji. It's almost six month, Zoro, six _months_ since any of us has seen anything of him, and-" Her voice quivers, people around in the bank starts giving them looks. This isn't good.

"Vivi, maybe we shouldn't-"

"You know? Zeff keeps on saying that Sanji is somewhere in Germany to some schoolarship in cooking, that he has gotten this _great _job at the same time of teaching some _"lousy greenbeans who thinks that they can cook"_."

"_I wanna live and see the world. Ya know?" Sanji's oceanblue eyes shines back at him with childish joy, a smile as large as the sun is bright, shines his way. A Sun. Sanji is one big sun above the sea. He swings his arm out to the open sea before them "Travel around, learn from the different cultures, and then, I guess, one day I want to settle down for then to open a little coffeeshop or something."_

"_You always lives to pleasure others, when will you ever start to pleasure yourself?"_

Sanji had looked back surprised at him back then, like he had said that he was born a woman but took a gender switch operation, or that he had become pregnant, like him Arnold Swarzenegger in that movie called *'_Junior_' that came out last year. Then, right after, the man had laughed, hard and loud, head back and laughed up to the sky.

"_I find pleasure in pleasuring others," _he had said right after that, staring right out onto the dying sun, can of beer in one hand, lying on his back, arms behind to hold his body up, legs stretched so far out that they were dangling over the cliff they were sitting at. For some reason Zoro could remember that day clearly. _"It would kill me if I used others to pleasure myself or if I put myself in the first row before any others."_

That spoke volumes for why Sanji always seemed to look so miserable whenever he showed up. He hated to use other people for his own good. That was why he always tried to pull the time out as much as possible, no matter how much it would hurt him.

"That's good for him, isn't it?" He jumps slightly in his seat as the petite woman slams her hands hard down onto the desk. Now they got everyone's full attention.

"Sanji doesn't _want _to be educated on some school like that! Sanji want to travel around and _learn_ from the different places that he _visits_! You and Zeff, you're both the same! You both act's like he's still around or like none of you cares a shit about him suddenly disappearing!"

"That is honestly what you self believes in? Really? His own father doesn't care about him?"

"_You _don't care about him!" She accuses, one painted blue nail pointing him in the face. Her grey pupils is quivering, tears threatens to fall at any moment. She still loved him, even though she was the one who quitted it between the two of them. "Sanji would never disappear like that without giving us any knowledge of it. He would never do such a thing!" Her hand lowers down, for finally to search up to her mouth as she sits back into her chair, holding back a sob, to keep her words under control before she speaks up again, this time low enough for only the two of them to hear. Some of her co-workers has already went up to the main office to get the bank's leader, who also is this young woman's father. "I'm so scared about if something horrible has happened to him. I'm… I got this feeling that, something bad has happened to him, but-"

"Sanji _is_ a strong man." He reassures her, making sure to make a big pressure on 'is'. Vivi nods, barely keeping her feelings under control.

"I know, but-" she swallows hard, biting her lower lip "It just doesn't look like him, all this disappearing, going somewhere else and not telling us anything about it, like he, want to disappear, like he… don't care… and it's my… Sanji… Sanji loves his friends. He loves the life, why would he then do such a thing?" Vivi looks pleadingly up at him, like she expects him to know the truth, and he does. More than she ever can imagine. But he can't tell, he never can. Only one person can, when he feels like the time is ready.

The last words she says stabs harder than anything. Sanji had always been a lively guy who always was there for his friends, who laughed, who _enjoyed _life. Knowing how far Sanji had fallen since then –six months. It was almost not possible to believe. He unconsciously looks down on his wrist where white stars covers his skin; bite-marks. _Sanji's _bite-marks. If they ever knew...

"Sorry," she says, drying a tear away and looks embarrassed down at the paper in front of her "I'll give you that loan."

~.-.-.-.-.-.-.~

It is supposed to be cold out here, but he can't feel it. It is supposed to blow a strong wind right now, but he does not let himself get bothered with it. It is nothing, nothing compared to what pain he feels inside, what craving there rips his insides apart. What little there was left of him has disappeared in that horrible pain, before his mind went dark and all what he could see, hear and feel was that endless hunger for _that_. Blood.

He sits fully still as a statue on top of the building's roof, staring down at that window that he knows so much about, awaits for its owner to return.

A waft of a familiar smell carries by the wind. He sniffs the air, stands up and walks casually to the other side of the building's roof. Lips pulls up to show two larger pointy canines as he catches the sight of the one he had been waiting for.

Now, dinner is served!

~.-.-.-.-.-.-.~

Zoro leans his head against the elevators doors, while the machine brings him up to his destination. It had been a tiring day, especially with that idiot babbling about his too many stories there undoubtedly were nothing but lies, while he showed him his new "inventions". God, he even had to threaten that man in the end, before he would shut the fuck up. His ears were still crying for all that talking they had suffered through. Usopp was okay, but hell he could talk your ears off if he wasn't stopped in time. Robin, that witch, who supported the kid with continuing to invent all those crazy things that wouldn't be allowed in normal stores, had just been standing in the background snickering into her hand. Had his dismay for those stories been that obvious? Bitch.

The elevator finally reaches his floor, though it is only five blocks up. It feels like hours before it gets there, more likely because it is an old machine there barely can hold itself together. The doors opens and he strolls directly to his own door. Then, he stops. Zoro looks over his shoulder, sensing that something is out of place. Then he sees that it is his front door; it's not locked and stands just a bit open, around the keyhole there is a lot of deep scratches. Had someone tried to break in? _Was _there someone inside of his apartment in this very moment? He reaches carefully for the door handle for not to scare whoever would be in there, but then, he senses it again. That odd feeling, the feeling of being watched, of something being out of place, it didn't come from inside of his apartment, but out here -and now- somewhere really close to him.

He turns his neck fast to the left, only to be met by Sanji's smiling face greeting him. He sighs in relieve, "God, you scared me there, Blondie." He says, but yet he can't seem to shake that odd feeling off him. Something _is _wrong and it happens from the moment the blond opens his mouth.

"Hello Zoro," he greets almost too happily "would you mind to let me in?" darting out a tongue he licks his lips, wetting them almost like a hungry tiger looking straight down on its prey, Zoro can't stop thinking. There is something wrong with the way that he is speaking, the way his lips moves, there is something hypnotic the way he speaks, sensually, tempting on a way there set all of Zoro's mental alarms to ring out loud, but yet it is like he can't hear those loud noises. "I'm pretty hungry right now." It's not a request, it's a demand, a demand that almost makes Zoro unconsciously to answer, there almost makes him to open the door and tell the blond to "come in". But just as he catches himself to say those words, he immediately knows what there is wrong.

Sanji's eyes are dangerously too red, dark blood red. He barely manage to rip himself out of the spell and turns around to get away, but of course, the blond is way too fast and stands right in front of him. He smiles with that unnatural wide smile. "Don't be a bad boy," he says, tilting his head to one side. Zoro tries to make a run the other way, but of course the blond stands there as well barely a quarter of a second later "we gonna have dinner now, know what we gonna have?"

"Sanji, you're not yourself," he says grudgingly, trying to back a bit away instead, the blond only tilts his head the other way in answer "I told you not to wait this long! It'll only _kill _you who you are!"

"But I feel so much free," the blonds' voice suddenly says right behind him, moving lips almost touching his ear. When the hell did he move again? Shit, he's too fast! "It felt like I was burning up at first, from the inside, Zoro, from the deepest cores of my inside. Burning like a hungry fire. But now," Zoro freezes as he feels a tongue licking its way up his throat "I feel so at ease, because of you."

There is only one second of pause before Zoro rams his elbow into the other's chest, it is almost like ramming into a brick wall, almost. Sanji stumbles only a little and he gets enough room to turn around to meet him face on. He throws a fist into the man's face, then another and another; Sanji takes them without defending himself, and that is bad. If he is just taking the punches he throws at him, the blond is too numb to not only sense anything but that strong thirst, but too numb to who he is, to his own soul. He hammers a fist into his cheek, there normally could break bones, but here it does nothing but to turn the face the other way around. He crouches down, arms pulled back like an arrow in its bow, the string pulled as far back as it can stretch before it gets released, throws out, moves forward and hammers into the blonds' chest like a ram battering into a closed gate, forcing it open. Sanji stumbles back, even groans at the impact, and it is enough time that he needs to stick his hand into his back and-

Sanji is suddenly over him, pushes him to the floor with him on top. He hits his head hard against the floor, the bag skits enough away to be just out of his reach. He throws an arm above his face, just in time to block the blonds' attack; he looks like a wild animal, blinded for all kind of reasoning and only having one goal in mind; his blood. Two canines' bites brutally into his arm, ripping it open. He just barely bites his own tongue to keep himself from screaming. He doesn't have time for thinking, he has no time to make any sane decisions as he feels how the blond bites harder down, hungrily drinks the oozing blood from his body. He makes a hard jerk as he pulls his arm free, tearing the wound even more open, Sanji hisses at him for his lost.

He reaches out for his bag, forces his body to move closer as he tries to get the gun with that serum in that he just had bought, but his arm gets caught, an almost white hand holds it in place above his head. And then, he feels a searing pain as the blond vampire bites into his neck, more brutally than before, lapping the blood into his mouth. Zoro screams loud in pain and wiggles underneath the body on top of him in an attempt to get free. He can feel how fast his system is emptied, how fast his body is drained from every little blood it contains. He throws a knee up, but the body above doesn't even budge. Shit! Sanji's too far gone by now! Zoro attempts to rip his arm free again and finally, success as the blond vampire is completely absorbed in savouring the blood. Not wasting one second more he grabs the gun in the bag, flicks the secure off in one swift movement, puts the barrel to the others neck and pulls the trigger.

There sounds a soft '_thhup_' as the needle breaks into the skin and forces the liquid into his bloodstream. The body above him halts abruptly, stiffens, before it falls heavy down on top of him, fully unconsciously. He can't move, he's too weak to even push the body off of him and can do nothing but to lay there, await for the other to wake up again to move away on his own. But, Zoro doesn't even know if he can even last that long, not this time. This time, this time Sanji took too much.

His hand with the gun drops to the floor, his eyelids feels heavier than they ever have felt before. He is aware of his shallow breathing; it was getting harder to breathe, it was getting harder to get his lungs to work properly, and he was getting tired. So immensely tired. His body was starting to feel numb, only his throat thumbed a little, there where the large wound still oozed out more of his precious blood. Shit. Was this it? Was this really it?

'_Sanji, you bastard_.' God how the man would regret the moment he woke up; if the product really would work the way, that longnose promised it to work. He couldn't leave Sanji. The blond needed him. It was his fault for not being aware of that something was wrong in the first place. It was his own fault for trying to make a run, instead of just taking that step into his apartment. He would have been untouchable there. What the hell had he been thinking? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

"Damn it." His eyes closes, everything turns dark, his heart beats painfully in his chest, or it should have, he can't feel anything, he can't hear anything more.

And then, he falls into that dangerous peaceful 'sleep'.

~.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.~

_**To be continued**_

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_Info:_

* The movie 'Junior' came out in 1994, with Arnold Swarzenegger and Danny DeVito as the maincharacters in it. I can only recoment people to go watch it, it's a good comedy Where DeVito gets Swarzenegger into this crazy experiment of trying to get pregnant by some chemical drinks. And then the movie follows how a man goes through those nine months and to finally have to give birth to a child. The whole experiment ofcourse are illegal, but Devito doesn't care and neither does Swarzeneggger in the end. He want to go through it to prove that it is possible.


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